In 1918, the curtain fell on the carnage of the Great War. In 4 years, 32 nations were dragged into a senseless conflict, empires collapsed, revolutions were ignited and 40 million people were sacrificed to a war that shattered both mind and body. 

Walking through the largest British and Commonwealth War Cemetery anywhere in the world, you get a sense of the insanity of it all. Tyne Cot is the final resting place of 12,000 men with a further 35,000 honoured on the memorial to the missing. Most of them died during the horrific Battle of Passchendaele.

6 miles west at Ypres stands is the Menin Gate. 80 miles south, the Thiepval Memorial rises above the battlefields of the Somme. Combined, they honour the memory of 127,000 soldiers who fought and died in the ranks of the Allied forces. The vast majority have no other known grave.

I've visited many battlefields across Europe, some of them many times. In each place I’ve sensed something of the psychological and spiritual imprint that catastrophic loss of life leaves in its wake. Even after all these years, the pain cries out.

In 1916, a Christian Army chaplain, stumbled on the temporary grave marked with a rough wooden cross. Inscribed on it were these words ‘An Unknown British Soldier’ nothing else.

Reverend David Railton was so affected by it, he persuaded military top brass and government officials to honour an unidentified fallen soldier as a way of acknowledging the hundreds of thousands of others. Two years after the end of WW1, Railton’s dream became a reality.

In 1920, a secret military operation was carried out by a handpicked team to exhume the remains of 4 soldiers from various makeshift battlefield graves along the Western Front. Each one was draped in the Union Jack and then taken away by field ambulance to the British HQ at Arras. 

Brigadier General Wyatt then selected one at random, no official record was released as to how it was done. The chosen remains were placed in a coffin and taken to Boulogne by horse drawn carriage. The other three were reburied.

On its arrival the coffin was carried through streets lined with a thousand French children and then loaded onto HMS Verdun. That V-Class destroyer sailed across the Dover Straits escorted by 6 battleships. On its arrival in England, the coffin was greeted by a 19-gun Field Marshall’s salute.

Following the ceremony at Dover, it was placed on a train bound for London and then on the morning of November 11th, men from the 3rd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards placed the casket on a gun carriage drawn by six stallions of the Royal Horse Artillery with full military honours.

It’s first stop was the Cenotaph in Whitehall where King George V laid on it a wreath and a hand written card that said ‘In proud memory of those warriors who died unknown in the Great War. Unknown, and yet well-known as dying, and behold they live” 

The pallbearers, made up of Lords, Admirals and Generals led the procession to Westminster Abbey with members of the royal family and government ministers following behind. As they entered, the choir sang ‘O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come’. 

The Unknown Warrior was then laid to rest in soil taken from the battlefields of France and Flanders. A black marble slab lies over the grave, with lettering made of brass melted down from bullets and shell casings from Passchendaele.

100 women who had lost their husbands or their sons in battle were invited as honoured guests to that first service. And now, on November 11th each year, the descendants of nearly a million men can find some sort of closure by knowing that the Unknown Warrior could be their own.

Other nations followed suit establishing their own memorials along similar lines as the British one. France buried an unknown soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and America famously interred one of their own at the National Cemetery at Arlington.

These words surround the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey “Greater love hath no man than this” and “In Christ we shall all be made alive” 

Those famous words from the Bible refer, first to the death, and then the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They carry the promise of eternal life for anyone who would simply receive.

3 days after Jesus was crucified, those closest to him made a shocking discovery. The tomb where his body had been placed was empty. You’ll remember the Christmas story where an angel announced Christ’s birth. Now an angel speaks after his death “Why do you look for the living among the dead” the angel said “Jesus is not here, he has risen”

The fallen soldier’s remains inside Westminster Abbey remain unidentified, but they are certainly there. In the case of Jesus, it’s a different story. Even though his body was buried and guarded, he has no grave. The Christian Gospel is the life-changing message of an empty tomb.

“I am the resurrection and the life” Jesus said “Those who believe in me will live, even though they die”